I have a few high-level questions. I do not need full how-to tutorials, but just some starting points that I can dive deeper into. These questions are pretty general (so pardon the newb-ness), as I’m personally more familiar with 2D game development myself. Here goes…
Are character/object animations usually created directly within UE, or are they usually imported from Maya/Blender/Other?
When creating a cinematic (such as in Matinee), are all of the animations done in external editors and imported into UE? Or are they animated directly in UE? For example, in the Fight Scene matinee demo, it seems difficult to fully animate those externally, since they seem so dependent on the environment within the editor.
Nearly all tutorials I’ve seen are geared towards animating characters in UE. When animating objects or non-humanoids (say a little flying drone or something), how does that work with UE’s skeletal system? Or does it not use UE’s skeletal system at all?
I know the questions are very intro-level, but I’d just like to wrap my head around general workflow. Beyond general learning and gameplay, my goal is to create a small intro sequence using matinee, and I’m wondering how to best get my animations in.
Thanks for any help!
On #3, you mention ditching animations and just moving a mesh around. If in addition to flying, my mesh had some moving parts, I assume those would need to be animated in addition to simply moving the mesh around. For example, maybe it has some wings that fold/unfold. It sounds like this would be animated externally and imported in, but would these somehow have to be used with a skeleton?
Yes, therefore you should use a skeletal mesh + anims which you should be created in a 3d program -> after that you can play them with a montage or animbp
I’ve heard some things about Blender -> UE4 imports being funny. Like having to downscale and rotate bones in Blender to get them to import the right way in UE. That seems a bit worrisome, though Blender has been what I’ve used in the past for other engines.
Edit: Looks like Dyoto’s post talks about it: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?28882-Blender-to-UE4-using-UE4-animations
Yeah Dharwin, that thread is specifically about making a Rig inside Blender that works with UE4 animations that were made inside Maya. Thats a whole other can of worms.
If you make the Animations inside Blender with a Mesh and Rig made inside Blender you wont have any problems.
(just simple movement with matinee)
